Nishnabottana Bluffs, Upper Missouri
1832
Medium
Painting
Classification
Painting
Department
Smithsonian Collection
Museum
Smithsonian American Art Museum
Credit
Smithsonian American Art Museum, Gift of Mrs. Joseph Harrison, Jr.
Accession Number
1985.66.402
Tags
About this artwork
George Catlin often adopted an aerial vantage point for his landscapes. During his Missouri River voyage of 1832, Catlin stretched out “in the grass on a favourite bluff” and envisioned the world from above: “I was lifted up upon an imaginary pair of wings, which . . . held me floating in the open air, from whence I could behold beneath me the Pacific and the Atlantic Oceans---the great cities of the East, and the mighty rivers.”
About the Artist
George Catlin · 1796–1872
George Catlin (1796–1872), born in Wilkes-Barre, Pennsylvania, to Putnam Catlin and Polly Sutton—who had been captured by Native Americans during the 1778 Battle of Wyoming—initially pursued a legal career. Trained at Litchfield Law School, he was admitted to the bar in 1819 but abandoned law after two years to study art in Philadelphia in 1823. Self-taught as a portraitist, Catlin quickly gained ...